“Does it matter?” asked Hawthorne.
“But Yezhov is mad if he thinks he can just send an assassin and shoot me.”
“How many directors are in the city?” asked Hawthorne.
“What? Oh, um, Director Gannel, for one.”
“The Venusian?” Hawthorne asked.
“What difference does that make?”
“He’s Yezhov’s puppet.”
“You’re shooting in the dark, making unsubstantiated accusations.”
“Director Gannel has flooded my headquarters with demands that I launch an immediate, all-out Fleet attack against one of the systems.”
“The majority of the Directorate backs him on that,” said Blanche-Aster.
“And it backs him on the continued beam-assault against the Sun Works Factory. When now is the moment to break off the attack.”
“No,” said Blanche-Aster, “you simply don’t understand, General. After many bitter months we’re finally hurting them, making them bleed. You must continue to do so for as long as possible. It does wonders for morale.”
General Hawthorne rose. “Our initial assessment—by long-range radar scan—showed great damage to the Sun Works Factory. But now our radar is jammed and any optic visuals are hidden because of a vast aerosol cloud. We must never forget that the Highborn react with uncanny speed. The longer we attack, the less will be our return.”
“That’s speculation, not hard fact.”
“I speculate from having watched and studied their reactions on several occasions.”
She raised a withered hand. A chime had sounded. “Enter.”
The door swished open and her chief bodyguard stepped in. She was young and hard-eyed, with a buzz haircut and with a long, supple body armored in silvery mesh. When they had first arrived, the bionic men had relived the bodyguard of her weapons. The General maintained that he didn’t want any hasty mistakes.
“Yezhov has arrived in the building,” the bodyguard said.
Blanche-Aster pursed her ancient lips. “Which directors are still in the city?”
“From our last reports, Madam, only Director Gannel remains here.”
“That’s it?” asked Blanche-Aster.
“Yes, Madam.”
Blanche-Aster’s eyes seemed to glitter. She had a narrow, hatchet-thin face, remarkably similar to her bodyguard’s face. She peered out the window, then back at General Hawthorne and then to her bodyguard. “Has Yezhov seen Director Gannel?”
“None of my operatives think so, Madam. But that was before…” The bodyguard glanced at Captain Mune.
Blanche-Aster gave her a minute nod, and then turned to Hawthorne. “Despite your predications, Yezhov has come when summoned.”
“I’m very surprised, to say the least,” said Hawthorne.
“Surprised, General? Don’t you mean elated?”
A hard smile edged onto Hawthorne’s lips.
“If you and your guard will be kind enough to step into the other room I’ll let Yezhov in,” Blanche-Aster said.
“Madam Director, I wish to remind you that my… You have a new security arrangement, which I hope you’ll keep in mind,” Hawthorne said. “Depending on developments today, well, perhaps your former security teams will be rearmed. I also wish to remind you that the cybertanks are again under Military control.”
“This is all highly unusual, General.”
“So is the fact that your bodyguards are clones of yourself,” said Hawthorne.
Blanche-Aster and her bodyguard traded glances, before she told Hawthorne, “I’m sure you’ve discovered that finding loyal people is difficult.”
General Hawthorne nodded curtly. Then he put his right hand on his holster as he marched into hiding. Captain Mune followed, although he never took his eyes off the Director’s clone.
Soon Madam Blanche-Aster said to her bodyguard, “Let him in.”
The door swished open and Yezhov, the Chief of Political Harmony Corps, walked in. He wore a scarlet uniform, with black boots and a black, plastic helmet held in place by a black chinstrap. Naturally, he’d surrendered his sidearm before entering the building. The bionic men had stayed out of sight, and the cybertanks had been ordered to act as if they still followed PHC’s orders.
Yezhov’s skin was pale and he had washed-out blue eyes and a ridiculous little mustache, twin dots under his nose. There was nothing else remarkable about his appearance: short and thin, a potbelly and an almost nonexistent chin. Long ago as a youth, he’d failed the Military’s physical. Next, the Peacekeeper Academy had flunked him. Choice number three had been Political Harmony Corps. Since then, forty years of dedicated service had finally paid off.
“Madam Director,” he said, in a normal, unremarkable voice. He managed a small smile by stretching the corners of his lips.
“Good of you to come, Yezhov.”
“I am at your service, Madam.”
“Why? To try and convince me to leave the city?”
“Madam knows best, of course.”
“Which city would you suggest?”
He pulled his eyebrows together, as if considering it for the first time. “Perhaps not any city, Madam. Highborn espionage has become most cunning lately.”
“Meaning?”
“We’ve begun to suspect that the attack on Beijing wasn’t solely to take out the proton beam station.”
“That’s very interesting,” said Blanche-Aster. “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”
He shifted uncomfortably but said nothing.
She said, “The three directors who died there on May 10 influenced your thinking, no doubt.”
“Certainly that’s part of it.”
“But more importantly because such talk scares the other directors into doing whatever you suggest.”
“Madam?”
“Come now, Yezhov, let’s not lie to each other. This is your moment, is it not?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I’ve heard your theories before. You’ve likened Social Unity to a triangle. How did it go? The Party is one point of the angle, the Military the other and finally PHC, our benevolent secret police, complete the geometry. Each is used to keep the masses docile. The Party supplies the propaganda, the slogans that beguile the masses. The Military insures that no one physically harms Social Unity, while PHC watches the people and weeds out the insubordinate. Yet the Military is like a bear, you’ve been known to say. It is a beast that will devour the other two. For the Military, if unrestrained, could rule alone. Therefore, the Party and the Secret Police hold the leashes that keep the Military from eating them. As long as the two hold on tightly, each is safe. Yet now the Military has been sorely wounded by the Highborn. May 10 and the late Lord Director’s foolish policies saw to that.”
Yezhov licked his lips.
“I have no intention of leaving the city,” Blanche-Aster said.
“What if the Highborn drop an asteroid here?”
“Why would they?”
“To decapitate Social Unity, to kill you and the other directors. I’m afraid that I must insist that you leave, for the good of the State.”
“Their targets before were the proton beam stations.”
“We can’t be certain of Highborn logic, Madam. They don’t think like us, after all.”
“I’ll grant you that. But the changing weather patterns will no doubt cause them to rethink this particular tactic.”
“The winds are a temporary inconvenience,” Yezhov said. “They’re meaningless.”
“Some of my meteorologists suggest it could lead to nuclear winter.”
“I’m unfamiliar with the term.”
“As I’m unfamiliar with giving in to fear. Until Director Gannel flees New Baghdad, I also will remain in the seat of power.”
“But the rioters, Madam, what if they storm the Directorate and injure you?”
“You will restrain them long before, of that I have no doubt. However, if it turns out that you cannot, well, Social Unity will quickly find someone who can.”
A hint of anger colored his checks. “If you think the Public Security Bureaus have teams who will face the mobs—”